How can marketers satisfy this unquenchable desire for new content? One technology that helps tackle the need for developing and delivering a constant stream of personalized content to customers is natural language generation (NLG).

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Digital Publishing

Last month I wrote about some of the immediate effects of the DOJ ebook settlement, including the reduction of prices on many HarperCollins e-books within a few days of the court's acceptance of the settlement. This month Hachette -- a former settlement holdout -- released JK Rowling's first adult book The Casual Vacancy. However, a look at the Amazon Kindle page shows a note that reads, "This price was set by the publisher." When initially released it was listed at $17.99 (and had quite a few formatting errors.). It's been lowered to $14.99 this week, but it's still more than half the list price for the hardcover. Amazon is selling the hardcover below list, at $20.90 but the Kindle edition is still substantially less.

Quark announced the new App StudioTM, the next generation digital publishing solution. By combining the market-leading HTML5 technology from the recent acquisition of PressRun with Quark's existing digital publishing technology, App Studio is now the only digital publishing solution that allows users to create customized apps with HTML5, QuarkXPress, InDesign, and XML.

The Chicago Tribune and Agate Digital announced the launch of the Chicago Tribune Ebook Collection, a growing library of standalone ebooks created from Tribune news and features stories, columns and photography. The collection runs to gamut from current affairs to biography, from sports to cooking. The ebooks will draw on contemporary material as well as the Tribune's archives.

HarperCollins Publishers announced it will roll out a new global publishing system. Global Product Manager, developed in partnership with Publishing Technology, will enable HarperCollins to unify editorial, marketing and business data around the world. By integrating systems and assets across the globe, the new centralized system will provide the company with the infrastructure needed to maximize its extensive catalogue of books, e-books, and apps.

Ganxy announced the launch of its Showcase service which offers a consistent interactive display across diverse marketing channels where readers can browse, buy, and connect with authors and publishers.

It wasn't so long ago that self-publishing was viewed as a bit, shall we say, déclassé. Distribution was often facilitated by the trunk of the author's car, and word-of-mouth was the only form of publicity. Thanks to ebooks, the internet, and the availability of digital publishing platforms, however, things are changing. The stigma of self-publishing has diminished, and even previously trade-published authors are giving it a try.

Advanced Publishing Corporation announced the beta version of VIZION5, which enables the company to create and deliver rich interactive versions of magazines and other publications across multiple devices. Advanced Publishing's VIZION5 offers enhanced zoom capabilities, dynamic social media feeds, easy to use table of contents features, and cross device bookmarking and annotation tools.

Author J.K. Rowling knows how to cast a spell on readers with her enthralling stories. But she and her publisher probably wish they had a magic wand that could undo the troublesome technical defect in the faulty first run of the ebook version of her new novel, The Casual Vacancy.

Recent findings from Bowker Market Research reveal that 55% of readers who purchased young adult books belonged to the 18-and-up age bracket. In fact, the largest segment of those adult book buyers were between the ages of 30 and 44, and a good portion of that percentage were buying these books for themselves as opposed to gifts.

For most magazine readers, the physical experience of flipping through glossy pages and tearing out the things you want to share is the part they love the most. Now, readers can experience the joy of clipping and sharing content in the digital world as well, with a new feature from the MAZ platform called "Clippings."

Over 450,000 ebooks and e-journal contributions, over 15 million database entries, and some 17,000 open-access journal articles are now available at De Gruyter Online. The consolidation of all content at a single platform offers scholars advantages, as research can now be conducted conveniently from one interface, regardless of the publication format or distribution model. There are a range of helpful features at De Gruyter Online to make day-to-day use easier, including alerting services that inform users about new releases in a specific field, as well as export interfaces for all major citation services.

Quark announced its new enterprise publishing platform for customer communications. Quark Publishing PlatformTM is an integrated solution that automates the creation and delivery of rich, interactive content across print, web, and digital formats. As an open solution, Quark Publishing Platform is architected to work with existing enterprise infrastructures and business systems to optimize the publishing process.

Creating and disseminating content is getting easier every day. There are countless free and premium tools ready to help you get your information on the web. As the volume of web content continues to grow, however, users are becoming more selective about the sources they rely on-and engaging an audience isn't nearly as easy as putting out content.

TheStreet, Inc. a digital financial media company, announced that it has completed the acquisition of The Deal LLC from Wasserstein & Co. Founded in 1999 as The Daily Deal print newspaper, The Deal LLC transformed its business into a digital subscription platform that delivers coverage of the deal economy, primarily through The Deal Pipeline, a leading provider of transactional information and services.

Alacra, Inc., a provider of online business information solutions, announced the release of the Alacra Authority File, a database of core legal entity data attributes for over 170,000 global business entities, delivered to clients daily. The Alacra Authority File is a comprehensive source of entity reference data which expands, enriches, and enhances publicly available data from the CFTC's Interim Compliant Identifier (CICI) and helps financial institutions prepare for the upcoming release of the global Legal Entity Identifier (LEI).

The Hive, a new community on Boston.com, launched today as a one-stop destination for news, information, and resources on Massachusetts' innovation economy. The section, , will explore technology, start-ups, the venture community, and the exciting growth of Boston's innovation sectors through local reporting, video series, and a curated feed of the best news and ideas on entrepreneurship from around the web.

In a report summarizing "major changes" in news media ownership in the past year, the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism (PEJ) touched on a variety of topics, ranging from a busy year for newspaper transactions to the struggles of AOL's hyperlocal Patch websites.Along with the report, which was published on June 26, PEJ launched a new interactive database, dubbed Who Owns the News Media, to help people "make sense of the changes at the highest levels." The database "provides detailed statistics on the companies that now own our nation's news media outlets, from newspapers to local television news stations to radio to digital."

I'm one of the lucky people who were able to know their great-grandparents. My great-grandfather Jean was born in 1910 and lived to see his 97th birthday. When he passed away, he left to me--then an undergraduate studying English literature--his 20-volume World's Greatest Literature set, published by the Spencer Press in 1936. And I can't help but wonder what kinds of literary hand-me-downs my grandchildren will get.

It's been a busy summer for Adicio, a provider of interactive classified advertising software. The company has launched nine new careers, real estate and motors sites for clients using its advanced classified platforms.

Springer is expanding its open access program by offering a fully open access option for books, which will extend Springer's established SpringerOpen and BioMed Central journal portfolio, and its Springer Open Choice option. Any electronic version of a SpringerOpen book is fully and immediately open access, and thus freely accessible on SpringerLink for anyone in the world with access to the internet.

Is there a better fit for digital media than the punk scene with its DIY ethic? Probably not. So BUZZMEDIA's acquisition of several punk rock publications which it will roll together to form AbsoluteVoices.Joining BUZZMEDIA's own AbsolutePunk is Under the Gun Review, Alter the Press, Property of Zack, and PunkNews, according to the Sacramento Bee.

Despite the growth of digital magazine sales in the UK, overall magazine subscriptions continued to fall across the UK, according to paidContent. Statistics show that from the second half of 2011 to the first half of 2012, the digital magazine business has doubled in terms of average monthly circulation. But that percentage of subscribers only accounts for 0.73% of total subscribers.

A new collaborative, online publishing tool, Medium, has been announced. The brainchild of Twitter co-founders Evan Williams and Biz Stone, Medium is designed to allow users to collaborate on works being published on the site, according to the company blog. After reading a work, users can indicate if they liked it, give feedback to the writer, and add to it. Once a work is posted, it will be organized into "collections", which are defined by a theme and a template.

All this talk about responsive web design among so-called content strategists makes me want to puke. Multi-device layout patterns? Fluid proportion-based grids and flexible images? Progressive enhancement? Unobtrusive JavaScript? Want to barf yet? Who could blame ya?Promulgated by well-intentioned members of the digerati -- folks like information architects and user experience designers -- responsive web design promises to help organizations provide a single source of content that is easy-to-read and navigate, especially when it's being viewed on a mobile device.